Amiga 1000 playing 640x512, 24 bit video with sound using DCTV

[wogfun]

Not sure if this was done intentionally or not, but you're obviously only driving about 25% of the screen with moving video, the other 75% with compression is super easy on the computer as it is a static image. I'm curious to see what true full screen motion video playback looks like on this machine. Still quite impressive given the age of the system.

[krisp75]

Amiga 1000 was the best looking Amiga! I really liked that "keyboard garage" it had.

[eisenwulfen]

The Amiga was always way ahead of its time, and no other platform could even touch it. Even the C64 made the PC look like a calculator. The C64 was out 2 years before the PCjr and the 286 and still did WAY more. If that wasn't enough the Amiga 1000 came out a year later for about $1300 USD compared to the 386 at $4000 STOCK. Oh you want sound too? Wait til '89 for the Sound Blaster 1.0

[TahreyUK]

@eisenwulfen Steady on, you can the argument TOO far. The 1987 PC-AT I've got in the a dusty cupboard would take issue with that statement - with it's full meg of RAM, 40mb HDD, 1.2mb floppy drive, 12mhz 16-bit CPU, 8mhz bus, etc. OK, it only came with a (720x348) mono display & 1-channel sound, but it was the work of moments to install a C64-beating VGA card, soundblaster... Windows 3.1... Wolf 3D...

(But let's be frank, even the chronologically-relevant EGA/Adlib combo just-about beats a C64)

[eisenwulfen]

@TahreyUK - Granted you can ADD-ON to compete at the time, but you needed a Lord's ransom in pounds to do it compared to what you would spend on a C64 with 1541 drive. In 1987 JUST the 40mb hard drive was about 2K pounds!!! I think my mistake was comparing apples and oranges. Anyway, C64 worth every penny, equivalent PC = Poorhouse.

[eisenwulfen]

@eisenwulfen One more thing. Soundblaster, not for 2 years later, wolfenstein3d AND Windows 3.1, 5 years away 1992, So how could the PC compete with a C64 in '87?

[fjccommish]

PC's what could only manage monochrome displays? Did you mean "PCs could only manage..."?

[doritostheking]

Whoops, forgot myself. The sub £1000 CGA mingers didn't even show up till 86. So they had an extra year and were still crap. Sad.

[vapourmile]

Ok, I have taken a look. I'm still not sure I understand where you're coming from. You're saying the Video Toaster device forms part of some sort of community project? That doesn't sound quite right.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile Not sure what you mean here, but this conversation will never end so feel free to continue it via email. Go to imica.net for contact details.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Well, it might never ever end, if you keep altering the basis of the discussion. You started with power, and when I responded to it, you shifted to a matter of cost and when I answered that you made a remark about talent, each time sidelining whatever I'd said before, leaving me to guess where you're trying to push things. I took time out to watch the video last night and at 2:50 it reiterates that pro-gear is pricey. Like I said, it's relative.

[vapourmile]

In answer to your question, yes, I meant for a complete CAD system for £25,000 was considered a bit of a bargain in 1985, and if you could get one, it would not have been counted amongst the high end. Silicon Graphics were happy to quote prices of £250,000 for a system in 1995, although the asking price for graphics in the non-technical market has dropped markedly.

[doritostheking]

@clusterukdevelopment Best to ignore this anti amiga troll. He thinks that just because you could get some minging 8088 CGA box for a couple of quid less than a 1000 the PC beats it on price, and because you could get a true colour graphics card for three grand then it beats it on power. Silly bugger.

[vapourmile]

Also, I get a bit fed up with repeating it, but the idea a PC could only display monochrome images at that time is a tiresome myth spread largely by Amiga devotees. The first PCs were monochrome but lived and died before the Amiga was released.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile Seriously, at best PC's of the time could display CGA which was 4 colours in a lowish resolution, Mac's had 4-8 grey levels. Sorry but this was not PC or Mac bashing, just a reminder of the truth that Amiga was groundbreaking and the other took a while to catch and then obviously they overtook. Shame but there you go.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Also, the 24bit Lumena paint program was available for the PC in 1984, so whilst I appreciate your devotion to the Amiga, your statement below is not true..

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile I assume this was the one that ran on the Truevision AT Vista boards which were VERY expensive and out of the reach of most people and companies. Amiga was the first true graphics computer that people could afford. Perhaps you woud like to tell us how much a PC with the right Truevision card and the $2500 software you mentioned.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile Lets just accept we have a diference of opinion, yes I know there was better hardware but at what cost.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Personally, I believe the difference of opinion hinges on cost, not power and what 'stream' of user a purchaser fell into. For domestic use by users with a small budget the Amiga represented fantastic value, if you had a combined interest in applications and computer games. The real trouble for the Amiga, which gets lost by its users, is that if you Don't fall into that category, it is a whole different ball game.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Most professionals, like myself, have far more generous budgets and no interest in computer games which isn't more than adequately satisfied by a cheap dedicated console. For me anything less than £25,000 is cheap. I owned and used a Truevision graphics adapter for 24bit frame buffer and remote control for off-line rendering to a Sony BETA-Cam SP professional video deck. Unless I missed something then, I wouldn't have done this with any Amiga.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment The thing is, the 'cost' buy-line changes dramatically if you're a TV company or a professional, in this case, the Amiga looks like the Very expensive choice because it would have been impossible to use one as a basis to compete in a broadcast-industry even in 1985 because it simply did not supply a base professional standard of output. It's cost was irrelevant: Choosing one in a broadcast marketplace when TV companies are buying the output would have been suicide.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile I agree with your opinion for your market and budget, now explain the Video Toaster which started the low cost desktop video market, admittedly later replaced with Mac and Avid etc. The Amiga put the graphics in everybody's hands.

[vapourmile]

Well, if we continue like this, with you returning to invalidate anything I say based on yet another aspect that was peculiar to the Amiga, then sure enough, eventually you'll end up with the Amiga. But that's logic, not the Amiga. It's like holding a competition then only accepting entrants who are identical with the description of your home team. That isn't the same as winning or even competing, it's simply invalidating the competition. And if there's one thing the Amiga didn't do, it's win.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Forgive me, that was a bit of a cheap shot. As for the VT, it's the same as 1985. It was cheap for its time, excited the low-end of the market but never offered much to the people who required that type of device to be competitive already owned better equipment. VT was released about ten years after Harry, which it sought to imitate, again it had an inferior video source and features: Great for shop window, wedding or home video, not suitable for a studio.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile This has been fun, but I believe you need to watch the video toaster promo video and see the guys mentioning that "Professional" equipment is only for the big guys. Your quote £25,000 is cheap, wow, was that then or now. Skilled and talented people are not defined by those with the most money, if they have it they can become skilled. Once the tech is in the hands of the masses which happend with Amiga then an industry could be born, and then taken over by others sadly.

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Sure, if you direct me to the video you mean, I'll watch it.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile here is the link, bare in mind the quality is not good, cannot find a better one, but I have one a bit better I may upload. Anyway the key part is minute 2.50 watch?v=nymVNhy4dw8

[vapourmile]

@clusterukdevelopment Ok, I'd like to get your response to this link. The video was first broadcast before the Amiga was invented. The system it features was available, exactly as you see here, in 1981: /watch?v=sRDXZnbtdOc What do you think?

[doritostheking]

@vapourmile As for the paintbox, it also cost a ton more and did less. I'd like to see a Paintbox that could also render 3D graphics, or also double as a general purpose computer system.

[doritostheking]

@vapourmile In answer to your violent rant: That was rendered across 11 Supercomputers. I don't see what 11 Supercomputer's worth of capability has to do with one sub $2000 Computer system designed by a man who hired his own dog.

[vapourmile]

@doritostheking You're right: They have nothing in common. That's my point. Your entire argument depends on limiting your sphere of interest to, as you say, sub $2000 machines because You're rejecting everything outside of that bracket, but I'm not. Your argument is not persuasive because it depends on a budgeting constraint that I don't share. A Nissan Micra is probably the best car for its price but I don't want one and I can pay for a better car.

[doritostheking]

@vapourmile No, I'm actually comparing all personal computers manufactured at the same time, in both their cheapest and most expensive configuration. It's like this. Amiga 1000 beats an 8088 CGA or MDA machine on graphics, performance, and price. Amiga 1000 beats an EGA machine on graphics, performance, and price.

Guess what: nobody looking for a personal computer is going to buy a Cray X-MP and the entirety of Project Athena. The movie is irrelevant.

[TahreyUK]

@vapourmile OK, let's make the statement more precise so it's plainly within the sphere that most people would be thinking of.

The miggy was, for most intents and purposes, the best commercially available home computer. As in, one that you could walk into Dixons and buy to take home that day, with a selection of popular software, without having to remortgage the house.

Because, sure, you could have gone and dropped five grand on some awesome supercomputer, but no-one actually did that.

[TahreyUK]

@vapourmile (And I'm saying this as an, at the time, ardent Atari-head)

PCs of the day were business machines first and home computers second. They were pretty good in an office setting, where someone else was picking up the bill, but both rubbish, bulky, and overpriced for home use. This price disparity gradually eased, but in the early 90s when the 68k'ers were being flogged for £150, a PC of similar price was no better than them. To get a "good" one in 94, we paid a then-astronomical £1500..

[doritostheking]

@vapourmile Video Toaster not suitable for the studio? Tell that to the thousands of TV studios that used them then. From X-Files to Star-Trek, Local news stations to hotels, university CCTV, and train stations, they all had toasters. Undeniable fact.

[doritostheking]

@vapourmile "Since it was released before the Amiga, I had wondered what sad, depressing, impoverished, loser excuse you'd come up with to explain it?

PS. I would also really like to have your address so I can come over and kick you half to death for being such a simple piece of shit. So if you can give me any clues that I can pin down to where you live so I can come over and hurt you, that'd be great, thanks. "

Well, aren't you a charmer.

[vapourmile]

I don't really get your description CUKD, it seems to read "If you retrofit an old system with new components then...", but you can do the same with anything. If you can post verifiable dates for when each component - including the video stream itself - was launched it would say so much more. I'm assuming this demo did not exist 25 years ago?

[clusterukdevelopment]

@vapourmile As with any product, third party devices and software appear over time, however the point was with the original computer and devices designed for it with no acceleration it was capable of this. As for the software, again, software appears later and not on day one.

[Drachenreiterklaus]

Old and new for an Amiga user ? Good combination? NAH! Plaese say you kidding us? Sorry for the comment

[dvamateur]

Man, why an LCD display? It's like putting chrome rims on 250 GTO.  Please get a proper CRT!!!

[clusterukdevelopment]

@dvamateur

:-)

Absolutely agree with you, but when I filmed this I could not find my 1084 and it was doing my head in as they are quite rare and they are a beautiful combination. However, it does show old and new in harmony and makes it easier to film so you can see big video. I have since found my 1084 and will do another at some time.

[electrictroy2010]

@dvamateur An LCD will produce a better image when connected to a computer

.

[dvamateur]

@electrictroy2010 and LCD is made in China man. Don't really care what image it produces. It should cost $2 in my opinion. For me, that's gotta be a CRC. Period.

[A1260T]

awesome vids man

[tubekolla]

This youtube clip is best viewed on an A1000.

[SpeedoJoe]

I'm all for retro computing and further development, but sometimes it seems all that Amiga users (and of other platforms) have to say is "well my computer is comparatively better than yours, 25 years ago".

[vojinvidanovic79]

@SpeedoJoe

Hmm ... Well, Amiga 1000 actually was the technological breakthrough. So far beast Amigas were Amiga 1000 and 3000.

In 2006 PC World rated the Amiga 1000 as the 7th greatest PC of all time and the 37th best tech product of all time. In 1994, as Commodore filed for bankruptcy, Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody--including Commodore's marketing department--could fully articulate what it was all about.

[richardmaudsley77]

@SpeedoJoe So?

[SpeedoJoe]

@richardmaudsley77 It gets repetative and tedious after a while. There's nothing wrong with nostalga and pushing old platforms, but some people take it too far and limit themselves unnecessarily.

[clusterukdevelopment]

@SpeedoJoe

I know my A1000 is only useful for reminding people where all of these ideas we take for granted now ACTUALLY came from in the beginning. However, my support for Aros is because I passionately believe, that an updated AmigaOS 3.1 even now can be a great OS for general usage. Having said that I have a beta X1000 on order so I intend to support Aros and AmigaOS4, and I hope my MorphOS videos showed that that is a very cool OS too. However, just imagine if they worked together, maybe;-)

[cv643d]

@SpeedoJoe

Its true :)